“It didn’t look like it made her very happy,” Dino responds.
“And that made you unhappy, right?” Dove asks.
When Dino doesn’t answer, Dove continues.
“How long have you worked for the late Mr. Vittorio?”
“He’s my cousin—I mean, was my cousin. I’ve known him all my life, but I’ve only worked for him for a year or so,” Dino says.
“Who hired you?”
“The Don—Bernardo’s father.”
“How long have you know Cynthia Bartlett?”
“About three or four months,” Dino says.
“As long as Bernardo knew her?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you go on dates with them?” Dove asks.
“They usually met at restaurants or theaters, and, yeah, I was along. I’m a bodyguard,” Dino says.
“So you spent a lot of time with Cynthia and you became fond of her, right?”
“She’s a nice kid.”
“How far would you go to protect her?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“How many people have you killed in your life, Dino?” Dove asks. “And isn’t that a gun in your belt?”
“Hey, I’m getting me a lawyer. You can’t accuse me of nothing.”
“Calm down, Dino. I’ll talk to you again later. Now, Mr. Bartlett, how well did you know Mr. Vittorio?”
“Oh, hardly at all,” Fred replies. “I saw him at the house a few times when he came to pick up Cynthia.”
“I thought Dino just said they always met at restaurants or theaters,” Dove says.
“Oh, well, maybe I’m confused. There’s so much happening,” Fred says.
“Come now, Mr. Bartlett, where did you meet Mr. Vittorio? You obviously knew him,” Dove says.
Turning his attention to the guests again, Dove says, “Did anyone overhear Mr. Bartlett talking to Mr. Vittorio?”
“I saw them talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying,” a guest says. “Fred seemed very serious, though, and Mr. Vittorio just smiled.”
“Is that right?” Dove says. “What were you talking about, Mr. Bartlett?”
“Well, Cynthia told me that Bernardo was taking her to Italy for an extended stay and I was trying to convince him that they shouldn’t stay too long,” Fred says. “Cynthia’s mother is not well and she would be very unhappy if Cynthia were away too long.”
“I see. What did he say to that?” Dove asks.
“Well, he, um, he said he would think about it.”
“Dino, where did you first meet Mr. Bartlett?” Dove asks.
“In his office with Bernardo.”
“Whose office?”
“Mr. Bartlett’s.”
“Mr. Bartlett, what was a well-known Mafia figure doing in your office?” Dove says, putting Fred on the spot.
“Well, he asked me to include him in my tropical-plant import business, but, of course, I said absolutely not.”
“Oh, you expect me to believe you refused to go into business with this man, yet you allowed your only daughter to marry him,” Dove says. “It just doesn’t make any sense, Mr. Bartlett.”
“All right, all right. I had lost a great deal of money in real estate. In fact, I was in real trouble. The Vittorio family heard about it and came to offer me a great deal of money if I would have my plant exporters in South America turn their heads, so to speak, when my cargo was being shipped here. I did it. I was afraid I would lose everything—my wife and my daughter—everything,” Fred says, crying.
“So that’s how he married your daughter—he blackmailed you. But then he would have to incriminate himself,” Dove says.
“Just how did Bernardo force you to marry him?” Dove asks Cynthia.
“He was going to have my mother murdered.”
“Just when did you get this bit of information, Mr. Bartlett?” Dove asks Fred.
“He told me he wanted to marry my daughter about a month ago,” Fred replies. “I told him he was crazy. That’s when he said my wife could meet with a fatal accident. He knew all about her schedules—when she went to the beauty shop, when she went to the garden club. Everything. He said it would probably be a hit-and-run accident, or maybe faulty brakes on her car. I knew he wasn’t kidding, so I told Cynthia. You see my wife has a bad heart, so even a slight accident could cause her serious problems. He was an evil man,” Fred says, putting his arm around Pamela, who begins to cry.
“I don’t think anyone would argue that point, but you don’t go around taking the law into your own hands, Mr. Bartlett,” Dove says. “Did you murder Mr. Vittorio?”
“No, but I wish I had.”
“Oh, Fred, poor Fred. You were always afraid that we would lose everything. I’ve always been able to depend on you,” Pamela says.
Dove turns his attention to Cynthia again.
“When did you hear about Mr. Vittorio’s threat on your mother’s life, Miss Bartlett?”
“Father told me right away. Bernardo had mentioned marriage to me and I just laughed at him. Then he told me I should ask my father what he thought about it,” Cynthia says.
“You know, I can’t think of anything much worse for a parent, or a would-be suitor, than having a girl you love forced to marry scum like Bernardo Vittorio and know he was taking her away to a foreign country so you would not even be able to help her if she needed you,” Dove says.
“The only thing I can think of that would be worse, is to be that girl; to have to put up with his slimy hands on you; to be taken away to a foreign country—away from your family and friends. That would drive you to do almost anything to keep out of his clutches, wouldn’t it, Miss Bartlett? We would all understand why you killed your husband. You did kill him, didn’t you, Miss Bartlett?” Dove asks.
Before Cynthia has a chance to answer, Pamela speaks up.
“Just a minute, sir. I know that horrible person had threatened to kill me—I overheard Cynthia saying something about killing a member of her family and I quickly put two and two together. I figured that would be the only thing that would make my baby marry that monster.”
Dove considers Pamela’s comments for a minute, then speaks.
“That puts a different slant on matters. So you knew that Bernardo was threatening you, but you didn’t find out until today, so you couldn’t have planned to poison him ahead of time. But your husband could have, your daughter could have, and certainly Dino could have. It pains me to say this, but I just don’t see Dino knocking Bernardo off with poison. That just wouldn’t be his style. As much motivation as you had, Mr. Bartlett, you just don’t fit the killer stereotype. But Cynthia—Cynthia has always had everything she wanted,” Dove says.
At this point someone comes into the room and whispers something to the detective.
“Don’t anyone leave,” Dove tells the guests. “I have to go to outside for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
Soon Dove comes back into the dining room.
“Well, now we know what the poison was—it was a poison found in insecticides. Mrs. Henry, the owner here, said she has a container of the insecticide inside her greenhouse. Now, who went to that greenhouse to see an orchid? We know Mrs. Bartlett went. Who else had the opportunity to slip around the building and go to the greenhouse?” Dove asks the guests.
“Everyone at the head table left at some point during dinner,” a guest says.
“Yes, I saw each of them leave, myself,” Dove replies. “So we have opportunity and motive. They all had the opportunity, so the motive has to point to the killer. Everyone had a strong motive to want Mr. Vittorio dead. But the question is, who had the strongest motive? I still feel that Cynthia Bartlett Vittorio had the strongest motive. Cynthia, I’m arresting you for the murder of your husband.”
Pamela quickly speaks up.
“Oh, you are so wrong—don’t you know a mother’s love is stronger than anything? You must arrest me, too, because my motive was as strong as hers,” she tells Dove.
&nb
sp; “Well, now, isn’t that interesting,” Dove says. “I have one murder and two killers. There is one thing missing—someone should have a container with the remnants of the poison in it. Could I see your purse, Mrs. Bartlett?”
Pamela pulls the purse away from Dove and a brief scuffle ensues, but Dove wins out. He takes her purse, opens it, and discovers a vial that smells of poison.
“You were wrong about one thing, Mrs. Bartlett. I did know a mother’s love was stronger than anything. I just had to let you prove it.”
Then Pamela is handcuffed and led out with Fred and Cynthia following close behind, trying to comfort her.
“When we finished the show, I still hadn’t eaten my dessert, so I sat down to eat that and most of the rest of the table stayed and kept talking to me for about another half hour, even though the rest of the crowd had broken up,” Dove said. “The Hrickos stayed at the table with at least two other couples and me and my date.”
Soon the Hrickos went back to their room, stopping to buy a couple of beers to take back with them.
At 1:21 A.M. Kimberly Hricko walked into the hotel’s main lobby to report a fire in her room.
What happened when the Hrickos got back to their room is unclear, but here’s what Kim had to say about the events of that weekend, some of which she told police.
Kim didn’t work Friday, February 13, because she had a doctor’s appointment at 8:30 A.M., as well as errands to run. The doctor’s appointment was for a sigmoidoscopy. This is a procedure that enables a physician to look at the inside of the large intestine from the rectum through the last part of the colon, called the sigmoid or descending colon. The test left her feeling completely drained.
Later that night she met her friend Jennifer Gowen for dinner at Mi Rancho in Silver Spring, Maryland. She didn’t sleep well Friday night and awoke exhausted. She wasn’t really excited about the weekend.
It seemed she really hadn’t been looking forward to going to Harbourtowne since Steve told her about it. In fact, she spoke with her counselor about Steve’s plans for a romantic weekend, saying that she was very tired and didn’t want to go away. Kim told her counselor that she didn’t think it would be a very pleasant weekend.
On Saturday, February 14, after dropping Sarah off at a friend’s house to spend the night, Kim and Steve drove to St. Michaels. Kim slept most of the way there. Kim knew Steve was taking her to Harbourtowne, but she didn’t know exactly what he had planned.
“On our calendar at home, Steve had marked the day with ‘Keep open,’” Kim said.
After checking into the hotel, the couple drove to their room. Kim still had no idea what surprises Steve had planned for the evening. When they got to their room, Kim noticed what looked like a wedding invitation on a table. After reading it, she discovered they would be taking part in a murder-mystery dinner theater. Now she knew why Steve told her to pack something nice to wear.
“Steve and his friend Mike [Miller] planned the dinner. The weekend was a surprise for me,” Kim said. “Steve and Mike had been friends since grade school. They had been talking more recently because Steve was falling apart. He was under so much pressure at work to do a good job. He really let it get to him. Our marriage was strained, too,” Kim said.
The room was freezing, so Kim started a fire in the woodstove with the log provided by the hotel. She also made a pot of coffee and spread out on one of the room’s two beds with the Sunday newspaper.
Steve opened the complimentary bottle of champagne and poured each of them a glass.
“I didn’t like mine because it tasted cheap and didn’t drink any more,” Kim said. “Steve drank the rest of the bottle.”
Because they had missed lunch, Steve drove to a convenience store, where he purchased two hot dogs, Tastykakes, and soda. While he was gone, Kim unpacked and hung a pair of wet pants, which she had washed at home that morning, out on the deck.
“We spent some time watching TV and enjoying the view from our porch,” Kim said. “It was extremely windy and the water was choppy. It was damp and gray—too cold to stay outside long.”
Before the couple went to dinner, Steve took Effexor, medication for his depression—he had been on the drug for about two weeks and the dosage had recently been doubled. Steve took the medicine at the same time every day. He only brought enough medication for the weekend, not the entire bottle. Steve also took Xanax, used to treat anxiety, and Flexeril, a muscle relaxant, at some point during the evening. The couple took their time getting ready for dinner.
“When we went into dinner, they had a receiving line just like a real wedding,” Kim said. “We had more drinks. We joined three other couples at our table. One person at our table had ordered a bottle of wine and shared it with everyone. We ordered several rounds during dinner and put one round on our room number. There was a cash bar outside [the dining room] and Steve and I got several beers there after the play and we took them back to our room.”
During dinner, while the murder-mystery play was under way, Kim and another woman from her table got up and walked around, interacting with the actors.
“The actors encouraged us and seemed somewhat disappointed that everyone seemed to stay planted in their chairs. This lady and I teamed up,” Kim said. “Before leaving the lobby [after dinner], we got a second log for the fireplace.”
When the Hrickos got back to their room, they turned on the television and watched Tommy Boy, with Chris Farley. Steve changed into a T-shirt with a logo on it and lightweight sweatpants and had a chew. Steve had chewed tobacco for years. Steve heated some water in the coffeemaker for his Theraflu and drank it. The whole family had had bronchitis and strep throat. Steve still had it because he was the last to get it.
“By the time I took my Zoloft, all Steve’s pills were gone,” Kim said. “After we watched the movie, Steve was showing some signs of having a little too much to drink. He normally does not give any indication that he has had too much to drink. The movie made us laugh, but still we did not talk about our problems.”
The Hrickos had a brief, but not loud, argument over sex—Steve wanted it, Kim didn’t.
“We had both been seeing counselors and along with our counselors the decision had been agreed to in advance that the weekend getaway would be just to relax with each other and have a good time,” Kim said. “It had been agreed that we would not be intimate on this weekend. It had been many months since we had been intimate.”
After the movie Steve approached Kim for sex. Kim got upset and left the room. She got into her car and drove around Easton. But she wasn’t sure where she was because she had been sleeping on the trip to Harbourtowne and had only been to the resort once before, three years earlier with her friend Maureen Miller, who drove to the hotel from her home in Easton.
Kim thought of driving home but decided against it because then Steve would have no way to get back to Laurel. As she drove around—she told police she was trying to find the Millers’ house in Easton—she got lost. She was trying to find Route 50, the main drag in Easton, but every road she hit had a “3” in it. She stopped to ask for directions but was still unable to find her way. She was very tired and getting more confused.
“I have always been very poor with roads and directions and always seemed to be lost. I could have crossed over Route 50 and not have known it,” Kim said. “I think I asked three people for directions—one person was in a white Volvo. I saw a mixed-race couple in Historic Easton and I remember the woman was holding a single rose and I thought, ‘How sweet.’ I asked them how to get to Harbourtowne and Route 50. The couple told me that the two were in opposite directions and asked me which one I wanted. So they gave me directions back to the hotel and I eventually found my way back to the resort.”
When Kim got back to her room, she realized she had forgotten her electronic room key. She didn’t want to knock because it was so late, so she went around back, because she remembered the sliding glass door had been opened. It was still unlocked. As Kim opened it, t
hick, oily smoke and intense heat poured out. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. There was no light, nor was there a smoke alarm sounding. Panicking, Kim ran to the surrounding units, knocking on the doors, waiting for someone to hear her. But there were no sounds or lights in any of the rooms. When no one responded to her pleas, she jumped in her car and drove to the lobby. It was approximately 1:15 or 1:30 in the morning. As she drove, she called 911 on her cell phone.
When she reached the lobby, which was in a separate building, she parked the car directly in front, partly on the sidewalk. She ran into the building screaming for help while still on the cell phone with emergency personnel, who were asking her to calm down so they could get the pertinent information from her.
“So when I walked into the lobby, I was already involved with the emergency operator, giving them the exact location and directions to my room,” Kim said. “They just keep saying over and over, ‘Calm down,’ and kept asking questions. I understand a woman said I walked in calmly and a man said I walked in hysterical. I was hysterical! Everyone present left and I didn’t know what to do, so I ran on foot to the unit because I was too upset to drive. I know I left the keys and purse in my car and I think I left the motor running.”
Kim followed people from the lobby back to her room.
“The police were at the cottage with cars. A lady held me back, pushing my head onto her shoulders and squeezing me. I heard over the police car radio, ‘We have a white male, DOA.’ From that information I knew that Steve was deceased without anyone telling me. The voice probably came from around on the porch side of the cottage over a walkie-talkie or radio. I never went into our room or saw Steve before I was taken away. I tried to get away from the lady and a policeman, and was screaming, ‘I want to see him.’ I understand the lady misquoted me saying, ‘I want to see his body.’ No one offered to help take me to the hospital to meet with the doctors or see if there was anything that I could do for Steve.”
An Act Of Murder Page 2